Increasingly, equipment utilized to measure, test and/or diagnose a wide range of vehicle conditions utilize programmable processors. In many cases, these devices use core processing equipment similar to that of a personal computer (PC). Examples of such processor based equipment include image-processing type wheel aligners, image-processing type collision damage assessment systems, vehicle scanners and engine analyzers. In such systems, a programmable unit receives a sensory input signal related to an operational characteristic of the vehicle, processes the signal or data from the signal in accord with one or more of its programs and provides information to a user of the vehicle or to a technician/mechanic (user of the tool). The programmable unit includes an interface device for receiving the sensory input, a processor and a number of memories. The unit may also include one or more storage devices or media, such as a hard drive or other disk drive, for longer term or higher volume storage. The memories and other storage devices store programming for the processor as well as data used or produced by the processor.
The types of memories now commonly used for such vehicle diagnostic tools have drawbacks. For example, when the user first turns on the tool, the device must load programming into working memory and run an internal start-up and diagnostic routine to initialize the processor. This start-up operation is often referred to in the computer and data processing industries as a ‘boot’ operation. Vehicle mechanics familiar with picking up a wrench and instantly applying it to tighten a bolt are often dissatisfied with having to wait for a processor based tool to boot up. Vehicle technicians want to pick-up a tool and instantly begin working with it, just like they can with a wrench. Major factors in the time needed to boot the tool relate to the memory of the tool, such as the speed of the non-volatile memory that initially supplies programming to random access memory during boot-up and/or the amount of programming that must be loaded from one memory or storage device into the main memory during boot-up.
A desirable feature of processor based diagnostic tools is the ability to run and periodically update various applications programs, to perform a wider array of functions and to keep all such functions as up to date as possible. However, this dictates loading programs into the devices and loading programs from one memory or storage into the main working memory, at boot up and/or during later operations. In hand-held tools, to allow desired reprogramming, the memory often takes the form of a Flash memory. However, these types of memory typically have slow read and write times, and as a result, the tool downloads any program stored in Flash to faster memory for run time. This download procedure can also be slow, resulting in slow boot times.
Hence a need exists for a technique to enhance performance, such as boot time, in diagnostic tools, such as those utilized to for testing or analysis of vehicles.